Clarion Antes Up $1.5B for Crow Holdings

DALLAS-Crow Holdings Industrial Trust is selling its entire portfolio or 35 million sf for $1.5 billion to Clarion Partners, the autonomous US subsidiary of ING Real Estate. The trust’s assets and its people, including CEO James Hendricks, will form the nucleus for the Clarion Industrial Group, overseer of the first REIT in three years to be rolled out by the New York City-based pension fund manager.

The transaction will close in November, bringing a high-ticket end to six months of talks spurred by Clarion’s desire to beef up the industrial component of its multi-faceted portfolio, Stephen J. Furnary, Clarion Partners’ chairman, tells GlobeSt.com. Clarion, acting for Netherlands-based ING Real Estate, went knocking on Crow’s door to open the talks. Crow Holdings yesterday declined comment on the pending sale.

The industrial sector’s strength throughout the recession was the temptation to seek more product. “We believe it will perform favorably from a return-performance point of view and we were under allocated,” Furnary said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to increase our industrial concentrations.” Clarion, which controls $7.5 billion of US property, does not gain any new markets with the buy, which naturally comes with some debt.